Blog@GraceJunction

Ten thousand years ago the agricultural revolution launched a slow wave of change. The industrial revolution, starting roughly 350 years ago, triggered a second – faster – wave of change. In the mid-1950s the United States started on the path to a completely new kind of economy – one based on knowledge rather than muscle power. This is part of a gigantic wave of technological, social and cultural change. What we’re living through now is history’s third great wave of change – one that is arriving at hyper-speed and is global in extent.

This new way of life – it’s really a new civilization or, for that matter, a “super-civilization” – is spreading out from the United States and has cells in many other parts of the world, from Japan and Singapore and China to India and Brazil.

The first phase of this current upheaval is the digital revolution and its social and cultural effects. The next phase is the fusion of the digital revolution with the genetic and biological revolution. (more…)

Come Olympics and most of us would be glued to this mega event unfold itself. More so because the built up to it and the country in which it is taking place promises much drama. This is one event which commands the most number of eyeballs, with the Athens Olympics drawing more than 4 billion people watching it just on TV. Most of us have already witnessed the violence that has marred the carrying of the Olympic torch, which signifies the uniting thread between the ancient games and modern games.

The purpose of the ancient games has been replaced by the spirit of the modern games. The Greeks placed emphasis on the Artistic nature of athletics and the preparatory role it played for its warriors. Games were important due to the impact it had on the regions economy and politics. But over a period of time the athletes began to be paid heavily for their sporting achievements and sports heroes emerged resulting in the demise of the amateurs and with it so many other things that sports stood for. (more…)

Friday saw rioting Palestinian Arabs torch the wheat fields of Israel and later on, pelting stones at the local fire brigade personnel – exactly a day after a recorded message purportedly from Osama bin Laden called on Muslims to break the Israeli-led embargo on Gaza. He also declared Iraq to be the perfect base to set up the Jihad to liberate Palestine.

Bin Laden, who was behind the terrorist network’s 09/11 attacks, has been in hiding since the U.S. assault on Afghanistan that followed those strikes. His last public statement was an audio message issued in December, when he urged his followers in Iraq to continue battling U.S. troops there. But he has his eyes trained on Israel too.

Now if you thought that Laden was the only guy who eyed Israel, then you need to know that there is also an ambitious leader in the present Iranian President! His eyes too are trained on Israel! (more…)

The latest buzz in the field of science, technology and particularly robotics is: Will machines overpower man?

Recently while watching NDTV, I saw about robots possessing human emotions of “love” being created! The highlighted question was: Now that the robots are being advanced to the extent of being capable of expressing human emotions, along with superpower, strength and intellect, will robots replace humans?

So man does seem a bit bothered about whether machines will overpower and replace him. Ironic as it is, the existence of man is under question, and that too by his own creation! (Can I take the liberty to imagine God saying, “Now man will know how it feels.”) (more…)

Hey Gigibhai your blog on the act of forgiving (Priyanka Gandhi forgiving to forget), is what inspired me to write this sequel. Thanks for that blog it was very touching and very well written …

Evil, can never be fought and won, evil has to meet its equal or more powerful rival, before it can be (eradicated) stopped. Evil was the act of bombing and victims were those who experienced the loss.

The effect of every evil deed continues even after the actual crime is over, as evil would continue to haunt and terrorize the victim by bringing in painful memories, hatred, vengeance etc.. Even though the victim of a crime may come to terms with the pain and loss, evil at every step will continue to victimize the victim ! (more…)

This article in one of the leading dailies of the country has touched my heart and before building into the theme I would like to cite some excerpts from the article.

This is about the life of Kenyans after the election trife in December 2007 wherein more than 1000 people where killed and 3,00,000 people where left homeless which basically took an ethnic turn. I would like to highlight some of the real life conditions this people are living in, which we won’t desire to have even in our worst nightmares.

Clinton Masheti, 8 yrs old and all alone, sits on a wooden bunch rolling snakes out of clay. When the men came and started burning down houses in his villages, his parents ran away- without him! (more…)

A gun that sends an electromagnetic pulse which causes seizures like that in epilepsy, a microwave gun that ‘beams’ words directly into people’s ears, another that is used as laser dazzler, still another that produces a sound loud enough to disturb the sense of balance, these are emerging non-lethal weaponry in the hands of the ‘Big Boss’. Some however have chosen to call these less-lethal weaponry!

More interesting is a microwave gun that produces a ‘disabling’ artificial fever by heating a person’s body! Though it would perhaps take about 15 minutes to achieve the desired fever effect, it could be used to incapacitate people for almost ‘any desired period’! (more…)